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Halloween. I kinda love it.
I very much want to carve a pumpkin this year, as i don't think i've ever done it! - more than likely because i can't be trusted with sharp things, my way of chopping vegetables is...interesting.
Anyway, to provide some inspiration i went on a little Google Hunt and came up with these seriously impressive pumpkins. I want the Pan's labyrinth one!
Oh and if you're not sure, the third pumpkin is the Death Star =]

Also on my travels i came across this lovely project called The Ones We Love. The idea is for young and talented photographers around the world to take six photos of the person that means the most to them and see the differences in styles and the feeling that comes across from the way they photograph that person. I haven't got through them all yet but so far this is my favourite:

If all musicians gave me shivers down my spine like Jeff Beck does, then i'd be a spineless mess.
Damn me for missing most of this programme!
Here he is playing with Joss 'Crazy' Stone. I've always liked her voice and Mister Beck is again, spine crumbling: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=cd1DVmljjAc

Excuse me while i build my Jeff Beck collection.

I do promise to actually put something artistic up here at some point. If only to prove to myself that i'm not a complete waste of space.
Yay for linear things!
That'll make sense at some point.

I learnt how to make charcoal the old fashioned way today and yesterday i was shown ice cream the colour of a sunset. Art School, good stuff.
Past few weeks have been a killer on the old drawing front. Reading Week? Be good to me.

Grizzly Bear have this lullaby effect on me.
I went through a stage in my teens of listening to music when i slept, i couldn't sleep without it - perhaps one of the reasons it takes me an hour+ these days.
If i still partook in nocturnal listenings, Grizzly Bear would be on the playlist.

"At a Los Angeles hospital in the 1920s, Alexandria is a child recovering from a broken arm. She befriends Roy Walker, a movie stunt man with legs paralyzed after a fall. At her request, Roy tells her an elaborate story about six men of widely varied backgrounds who are on a quest to kill a corrupt provincial governor. Between chapters of the story, Roy inveigles Alexandria to scout the hospital's pharmacy for morphine. As Roy's fantastic tale nears its end, Death seems close at hand."

I am very much looking forward to seeing The Fall, seeing as Tarsem Singh failed so miserably with The Cell. Visually it was stunning but Jennifer Lopez has only once been able to act - Out Of Sight - and that was a minor miracle on Steven Soderbergh's part. I need to watch that again sometime.
So here's hoping The Fall doesn't disappoint. Fingers crossed and all. Not that i'll see it for at least 6 months after everybody else.
I like seeing films that way. The hype disappears and i can make my own mind up, sans influence.

I really, really don't like feeling like crap right now. Y'know when you're in school and being ill is the best thing ever...well, gone are the days of lying on the couch watching Disney and drinking so much tea i could've developed gills. Now i'm just grumpy.
It's funny, everytime i sneeze, my cat wakes up and grumbles at me. A full on, old man grumble. He's a wee curmudgeon.
I did however finish my first sketchbook of research. I'm a little horrified to think of how many i'll have by the year's end. This one's only taken me 3 and a half weeks.

I've also finished To Kill A Mockingbird and it was so lovely that i was genuinely quite upset to finish it. It was nice to finally meet the elusive Boo Radley though.
I think i'll be reading Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton next, we'll see when i get to bed. I hope it's not crap. It's been looking at me from my book pile since August.

I want one I want one I want one!
It seriously makes my stomach do a little flip.
I'm not a photographer, i take fairly average photographs but i love cameras - something i think i got from my Dad and his Dad. Except my dad's actually a pretty great photographer.
I want oneee. There's a fair few on ebay but i'm not sure i could bring myself to buy something like that from an auction website. I could end up with camera parts and a big 'gullible' post-it note.
What to do, what to do...

Today has been an unexpected one; waking up, near fainting, scaring the life out of my mum. Sorry mum.
(i'll be getting a telling off from my sister if i used that semicolon wrong there, which i probably did)
I kinda feel like my insides have been robbed, some little organ thief is probably trying to peddle my lungs to the highest bidder at this very moment! My poor insides.
Oh well, i at least found Phillip Toledano today.
The above photo is from the collection, Days With My Father which is both lovely and heartbreaking. It keeps track of the time he has left with his some-what fading father. Normally, i would find seeing something like this intrusive, watching someone's most private moments seems unkind but this is welcoming and honest but that's probably why it's hard to read at times. However, please do, if only for the beautifully melancholic photography.

Yet another scrappy drawing but i like this one's scrappiness. Plus, immense expression. That's true sleep, far far away from this plane of existence sleep. Don't you wish you could sleep like that all the time? I certainly do. It only ever occurs when i'm so knackered i can't see straight and being the nocturnal wretch that i am, it very rarely happens.
This day has been full of lots of interesting anecdotes. The mark of a good day:
Smelling milk to check its wellness and memories of my childhood holiday house in Carradale causing a smile. Quite possibly my favourite place outside my home, i can't wait to return someday. Milk has a good smell.
My sister reminding me of Sandworms and my inexplicable disgust at them rising from the depths of my feeble memory banks. Bleurgh. I remember hopping around them cause they horrified me so much. Yuck. Gives me shivers.
My love of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
My love of Azure Rayand my highlight of the day...
Russell Howard at The Secret Policeman's Ball. I think he should take Bill Bailey's captaincy on Never Mind The Buzzcocks. He'd be magic. I don't usually buy comedian's shows on dvd but for him, i shall make an exception, for i love him.

The usefulness of having a blog - i can put all the crap i don't want to put on DeviantArt, here!
A couple of drawings, the first a quick sketch of a very happy baby. It kind of reminds me of one of the Seven Dwarfs. I'm in two minds about using big expressions like this but i'm not going to limit myself. Who knows what'll happen. Happy accidents, lovely things.
But yes, just a very quick sketch. You can tell by just how scrappy it is, i do however, think that i sometimes capture more character and life when i draw quickly. Portraiture is tricky.
The second is a work in progress. I really quite hate it, the iris is really testing my patience and i have this feeling i'll wreck it somehow. Bah humbug.
I think i need to start working on a bigger scale. Not just because it seems to be the scale of the time but because it will in fact, have a better impact. Either that, or i have to go really small. Like my self-portrait in first year.
I'm not panicked but this project is doing my head, i'm in constant conflict!

Something today did however, make me rather cheery and that was remembering Vincent Brown, who i encountered last year? on DeviantArt. I was pretty much in awe of the immense detail he puts into his work and was flabbergasted - amazing word- when he complimented me on the above mentioned self-portrait.
It was then great to see his work displayed in the flesh at The National Portrait Gallery'sBP Portrait Award in Edinburgh. I wasn't sure at first but then had a little fit of glee at realising it was Mr Brown's work.
I like it when things like that happen =]

"When you see such photos, you can't help but wonder at just how sweet and sad and innocent all moments of life are rendered by the tripping of a camera's shutter, for at that point the future is still unknown and has yet to hurt us, and also for that brief moment, our poses are accepted as honest."

- 'Generation X'
Douglas Coupland

I am truly in love with this photograph and i can't seem to stop saying coinkydink, i think it got stranded in my head this morning.

This is more like me at my drawing best - that is however rather ordinary compared to some hyperrealists out there. I, however, just need to practice and this project is giving me the time to do that. I don't want to destroy my work though. I spend tedious hours trying to pick up and accurately reproduce all the detail i feel essential and then what? Scrub it away? That's crazy talk! Agh, depressing.
I'm too precious over my drawings, something i really need to get over for this project and for future buyers - if there are any!
I need a kick.

Being the carrier monkey that i am, i've caught a bug and it's waging war on my geriatric immune system. I probably shouldn't have commented on how "...it's usually me who's sick!", while everybody in my studio was suffering at the hands of pre-winter bugs.
I am glad it's Autumn though, i change my mind throughout the year but this is definitely my favourite season at this moment in time.
Time for wearing 6 layers, knee high socks, fingerless gloves and big warm coats. AND HATS!
By December i'll be whinging that it's too cold.

'Two live oaks stood at the edge of the Radley lot; their roots reached out into the side-road and made it bumpy. Something about one of the trees attracted my attention.
Some tin-foil was sticking in a knot-hole just above my eye level, winking at me in the afternoon sun. I stood on tip-toe, hastily looked around once more, reached into the hole, and withdrew two pieces of chewing gum minus their outer wrappers.
My first impulse was to get it into my mouth as quickly as possible, but I remembered where I was. I ran home, and on our front porch I examined my loot. The gum looked fresh. I sniffed it and it smelled all right, I licked it and waited for a while. When I did not die I crammed it into my mouth: Wrigley's Double-Mint."

- To Kill A Mocking Bird

After not making it through Mr Vertigo due to extreme impatience, i started on Witch Child. I got through it reasonably quickly as it's a kids books but it was a decent read, a nice break from my mission to read the classics. Next there was Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma, what possessed me to read this, i don't know. It started with a fairly good idea and then divulged into preaching from wholly shallow characters. I think through the whole thing i was trying to convince myself that it was good, as i'd heard such good things about Coupland but no, it was crappity crap crap crap.
Shall seek out another one though, he can't be this acclaimed for no reason surely? How naive i am.
Anyway, To Kill A Mockingbird was next on my agenda, apparently it's shameful i haven't read it and after only a few chapters i can see why. The above is one of my favourite quotes so far.